Chloe Petherick, Global Head of Brand & Communications at Unispace
Companies like Nike and Coca-Cola have become multi-billion-dollar businesses, recognizing their brands are strategic assets, and managing them like any other commercial investment. It’s critical for companies to invest in their brand and drive recognition to stand out in the noisy (and ever changing) world of buying and selling. And, with a shift toward people’s purchase choices being influenced by brand purpose, not just price, the discussion around brand as a commercial driver grows increasingly relevant. Since brand is more than a logo, Chloe Petherick, Global Head of Brand & Communications at Unispace Group, shares insights on how to position marketing as a revenue driver, framing your brand as a commercial asset.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your career journey to your current role?
A: I’m a New Zealander who’s journeyed to New York, with stops in Australia and the UK. Over the last two decades, I’ve worked with large firms in media buying, market research, and brand strategy. For the past five years, I’ve been with Unispace, a global strategy, design, and construction firm, in London and then New York.
My path took shape in my early career at BP Australia, where I realized the impact of brand storytelling and corporate communications working on Opal fuel. Opal is a low-aromatic fuel that doesn’t contain the properties that create a high when sniffed (unlike regular unleaded). BP developed Opal after receiving a letter from a concerned member of a remote community, asking if we could do anything to help tackle petrol sniffing. We rolled it out as an unbranded product, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Health, to aid ease of adoption by other fuel companies, helping combat the petrol sniffing epidemic in remote communities. We had to get laser focused on our narrative based on who we were speaking to—farmers, fishermen, mechanics and tourist visiting—because they required wildly different channels and messaging (from airport signage to fishing magazines and technical brochures) to reach. Fast forward and since the roll out, Australia has seen a 94% reduction in affected communities.
When the opportunity came up at Unispace, a less mature brand (around a decade in market), I was excited to play an active role in defining and evolving their brand at a corporate, rather than at a product, level. Being part of Unispace’s journey and guiding brand growth globally is exactly where I want to be. Today I guide our brand architecture through M&A changes, and develop strategies and campaigns that drive demand and elevate brand awareness across four continents.
Q: How does brand influence the overall ROI of an organization?
A: Brand is a powerful driver of business growth. It’s not just about product or performance—it’s about creating a brand that people prefer, one that holds value. A common misconception is brand is related to marketing alone, and it’s not. Brand is a core part of a company. It goes beyond sales, influencing all areas of a business—your brand purpose and values should help you make go/no-go, even and hiring and firing decisions. It’s essential for long-term growth.
For instance, companies like Coca-Cola and Veuve Clicquot have strong brand equity, built on clear strategy, distinctive and consistently used brand codes, and compelling storytelling. When well-managed you build brand equity, which translates into competitive advantage such as customer loyalty, pricing power, and ease of market entry—all these factors contribute to higher margins and repeat business. So it’s smart business strategy to invest in your brand like it’s a commercial asset.
Q: What steps can marketers take to position brand as a revenue driver rather than a cost center?
A: Yes, building your brand comes with a cost but it needs to be seen as an investment in long-term growth and success. Marketers must speak the language of the C-suite: revenue, growth, and ROI, to show they understand this.
Brand is so much more than a logo, tagline or website copy—it’s what your customers think, feel and say about you. A good place to start is putting metrics into your brand strategy, not only does it help you spot where you need to optimize but helps you report back on the influence you’re having. A great one is tracking perception indicators, and clearly articulate to leadership how sentiment, reviews, etc can have a negative or positive affect sales and brand equity.
There is so much data at our fingertips as marketers these days, from analyzing client journeys in your CRM, retention rates in Salesforce, campaign KPIs in LinkedIn and so much more. Look at your channel and campaign KPIs and align them to business drivers. Metrics like website traffic, impressions, reach, and engagement all tell a story about your brand’s success. Connecting this with the customer data (retention, repeat business, satisfaction), marketers can show that brand investments go hand-in-hand with the company’s financial health.
Q: What’s your approach to gaining C-suite buy-in for long-term brand investments?
A: Marketing is both science and storytelling—it’s our job to know our audience and what channels and messaging will resonate. Speak their language; outline a clear strategy; align it to business goals. Use the same critical thinking about your messaging to C-Suite to position brand as a revenue driver, as you would do for determining your messaging and channel selection for a campaign to target clients.
I’d also encourage all marketers to read Peter Field & Les Binet’s ‘The Long and Short of It’. The principles laid out across B2B and B2C are that we need to build brands and drive sales, but focusing solely on one (often this is lead gen sprints) can backfire. Brand-building creates awareness and trust that make your shorter lead gen sprints more effective.
The biggest challenge in gaining buy in is that the effects of brand building activity often extend beyond typical annual reporting and budgeting periods, making it harder to show value to C-Suite in isolation.
Some tactical approaches:
1) Integrated campaigns: Instead of isolating brand campaigns from lead generation efforts, run them concurrently. For example, a thought leadership campaign (focused on brand-building) across PR, LinkedIn, etc paired with a tactical LinkedIn ad (designed for lead generation) can amplify each other. LinkedIn data shows that businesses running both types of campaigns simultaneously see stronger ROI for both.
2) Track the right metrics: Find ways to connect the dots between your paid campaign metrics and others like increased direct web traffic, re-engaged leads and perception trackers. Share these insights to build confidence in the investment.
3) Best practice budget splits: Look at the data for your industry, many brands adopt a 60/40 split (60% for brand-building, 40% for sales activation) as a baseline. Remember that the investment now in brand building, makes it more cost effective for your lead gen sprints down the line.
Effective marketing involves balancing short-term sales activation with long-term brand building. It’s not “either-or” approach—it’s “and.”
Q: How can marketers use data to make a stronger case for brand impact on growth?
A: As marketers, data is our best friend. It enables us to make smarter decisions and report back to the business on impact and performance. Ultimately, you want to be showing the business that you’re increasing brand equity (the value).
Keep focused on brand awareness, perception and loyalty. Full brand tracking is fantastic for this but requires budget you may not have (yet). Use metrics like win/loss ratios and client retention rate, website referral traffic, social follower growth, media coverage quality, and video views and CTRs, to help you to connect the dots between brand visibility and business outcomes.
Q: So brand-building often requires patience and long-term investment. How do you balance this with short-term revenue goals?
A: It’s a balancing act. At Unispace, long-term initiatives, such as thought leadership and global brand videos, run alongside tactical campaigns with immediate objectives. When they operate in tandem, we see better outcomes from both. Essentially, success in your shorter-term lead gen fund and fuel brand building initiatives, while brand campaigns make your lead gen campaigns more effective (as people know and trust you already).
LinkedIn recently shared that companies like Airbnb have shifted nearly all their ad budget towards brand campaigns—because they drive the most impact over time.
Brand-building and lead generation are distinct but interlinked processes. Your short-term strategies still need to align with your overall brand vision. Think of it like dating—you don’t go from “hello” to “let’s move in together” in one interaction! It’s a gradual process of building trust and aligning values. The same goes for brand marketing: every interaction builds towards a relationship.
Some of the keys to create this balance:
- Creating clear goals
- Running targeted lead gen campaigns alongside always-on brand building campaigns
- Align short term goals with long term strategy
- Measure and monitor
Q: How does brand help align different departments like sales, product, and customer success?
A: Brand is the connective tissue within an organization. Sir Richard Branson famously said, “Take care of your employees, and they’ll take care of your business,” to me, this includes creating a brand that employees connect with and feel proud to represent. LinkedIn insights show that engaged employees will share your company content, boost reach and engagement by over 30%. Imagine how much it costs getting that kind of uplift with ad spend alone.
A strong brand helps ensure everyone is aligned on how to represent the company, interact with your peers and your clients, and live and breathe your values.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you see the role of brand in driving ROI evolving, particularly in industries like real estate and design?
A: Brands are increasingly expected to stand for something beyond their product and profitability. Consumers are looking for personalization, authenticity, and engaging, relatable experiences. With a heightened focus on brand purpose and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles, companies that align their brand with social responsibility (whether that’s sustainability, inclusion or something else entirely) and walk the walk, will see a competitive advantage.
At Unispace, we’re already experiencing this shift, and applying it to our brand campaigns. Clients want partners who reflect their values and can help them show their own employees or clients what they stand for through their physical space. Unispace’s Art for Impact program has helped brands like Zoom and Orrick articulate their brand purpose and values through bespoke artwork. You’ll see a lot more of our brand campaigns highlight how we help clients improve their employee experience through amplifying their sustainability or inclusion values, while rational messages around our integrated approach putting strategy, design and construction at the table at the same time results in higher-quality outcomes for clients’ budgets and shortened project timelines, are more the place for lead gen sprints.
